Last Saturday I traveled virtually to the Shire. The Tolkien Society staged a sing-a-long so that we could share a few laughs. I performed the song I created for the Tolkien 2019 event in Birmingham. In “The Biggest Little Tolkien Fan” I explain that, while I thought I was a very big fan, I soon found out that I knew nothing!

Want more Tolkien fun? In Birmingham and at the Oxonmoot I attended in Oxford, I performed my short skit “The Trouble with Creativity.” In this video I recreate it with the help of my colleague, Alan Kohler, who makes a darned good J.R.R.T.

Mid-March I went to San Diego for Left Coast Crime. I went a couple of days early to do some sightseeing. The San Diego Zoo is terrific! In fact, I spent the whole day there. The terrain is quite interesting. Most of the animals have a nice space. My favorite by far were the koalas! They are so cute! They spend most of the day sleeping, and then, when they're tired, they just bend their little heads and zzzzzzz.

I also went to the San Diego Art Museum, which was quite nice. Then I was all excited about the conference--and enjoyed the first day--and then we got shut down by the State of California. Darn it!

I had a great time at the Bouchercon Dallas World Mystery Conference. Not only did I hear fun talks, but I got to participate on a panel, do author speed dating, and even make time for some sightseeing! I had a chance to catch up with my mystery writer friends as well, so it was a perfect visit!

I heard some great interviews, but the one where Hank Phillippi Ryan interviewed James Patterson was the most entertaining. They might have been a comedy team! But James made important points about literacy. He says the trouble with reading in school is that kids rarely say, "Hey, I finished that book--give me another!" He tries to provide young readers with exciting stories. My colleague says his kids are hooked!

Another fun talk was given by Charlaine Harris. She explained about her Sookie Stackhouse series and how Alan Ball had done a great job adapting her work to film. I haven't watched True Blood yet, but I loved Dead until Dark! (Can't wait to read the second book in the series.)

A precious moment was meeting Dick Francis. He's a sweetheart! Back in the 80s, I read so many of his dad's books that I asked my grandparents to take me to Tampa Bay Downs so I could see what the racing environment was all about. Dick and Mary Francis wrote 39 books. Felix has continued the series, and he's up to 14. And lucky me, I got a signed copy of the new one!

I also took time to visit the Dallas Museum of Art. There are some fine Chihuly pieces on the front windows! I went on Thursday because the museum was open late, but that was also Halloween. The guards had been invited to dress up. The women mostly did. Only one of the male guards was brave enough! I gave the non-dressers a hard time--I was wearing my ghost T-shirt!

On my last day in Dallas, I visited The Sixth Floor Museum. It was very interesting and very hard to visit. You can stand at nearly the same spot where Oswald purportedly shot Kennedy. You look down on the pavement and see the two Xs where bullets hit. The experience was eerie and difficult. In fact, it made me cry. I was too young to remember JFK's death, but my mom recounts teaching class when his assassination was announced over the loudspeaker. It's a horrible chapter of U.S. history, but everyone should know about it.

And now, it's time to plan for the next mystery conference! Left Coast Crime will be in San Diego next March, so I have a great excuse to go visit that fun city...

Delft is one of the most picturesque cities I've ever been to. It's famous for its beautiful ceramics. It's also the hometown of Johannes Vermeer. But I came to Delft to walk the canals. Unfortunately, most of the three days I had for Delft were full of rain! It was one rainstorm after another. Then, on my last afternoon, the sky cleared, and everyone ran to catch glimpses of the canals in sunshine.

I love being beside the water and looking at the reflections and imagining things like what would happen if someone parked too close to the edge of the canal! Delft feels like it's from a different time period--a mysterious one. There are cars, but this is a walking town--a bridge town. Once you know your way around you can scoot through the town quickly and efficiently. I sort of stumbled, of course, but I was so pleased to discover different paths that I didn't mind.

When I needed a picturesque town for Andy Veracruz, I naturally thought of Delft. Why wouldn't he visit such a town full of musicians and culture? Why wouldn't his girlfriend Rachel be delighted to accompany him? (Well, she gets disillusioned quickly enough....) And why wouldn't Delft be a perfect place for a concertmaster to hide? Hence in Substitute Soloist, Andy is sent to Delft, where he's greeted warmly by the people.... at least most of them!

This year I had the lovely opportunity to attend the Oxonmoot, the annual conference presented by the Tolkien Society. The event is held in Oxford, England, where Tolkien was a professor for most of his academic career. The event is held near Bilbo and Frodo's birthday, September 22nd. This year it was conveniently held at St. Anthony's College.

It was a wonderful experience. For the first time I had a chance to hang out with lots of other Tolkienites. When I showed them a picture of the mural that proudly hangs in my living room, the one I've owned since high school, the one my parents drove out to Tucson for me, my new friends knew immediately: Oh, yes, that artwork comes from the Barbara Remington covers from the 1960s. Remington hadn't read the texts because Houghton Mifflin was in such a hurry for the covers, but I've always liked them anyway. They're happy and optimistic--which is how I've always seen The Hobbit as well as The Lord of the Rings.

For the next several days I enjoyed the myriad of activities: the pub quiz (those people REALLY know stuff!), the entertainments, the talks by Tolkien artists and scholars. I even got to speak about Bilbo's motivations. Obviously, he didn't really want to go off on a long adventure--or did he?

Over the weekend I had delightful conversations with Tolkien lovers from 17 other countries. (After the UK, the biggest number of attendees came from the US and the Netherlands; they also came from India, Canada, and other European countries.) We went to the Bird and Baby and the White Horse, pubs that Tolkien and C.S. Lewis frequented. We talked about passages of Tolkien's texts that we especially loved. With Joel's help, I performed an imagined dialogue between Bilbo and his creator. Since the author was procrastinating, Bilbo had to demand to be written!

Finally, on Sunday, we visited the cemetery where J.R.R.T and his wife are buried. The leader read from Chapter 1 of The Hobbit. One member wore his elven cloak; another sang in elvish. It was a beautiful pilgrimage.

It was also a beautiful weekend. I can't wait for the next Oxonmoot! And many thanks to the Tolkien Society members for all their hard work to put on the conference and all the friendly and sincere participants. If only the weather had been warmer, we might have been in Rivendell! Now the question remains, if I were to set one of my murder mysteries in Oxford.....

In July I had the chance to go to Kato Verbena with some friends. The small Greek town is a half hour south of Naufplio on the Peloponnese. My friends have a house there, and they had an extra bedroom. When they invited me to join them, I didn't hesitate. Unfortunately, they had a lot of housework to do. One day they waited three hours for the electrician to show up, and then he didn't have the right equipment! It was almost funny. But lucky me, while they were working on the house, I was spending my time down at the beach..... Or maybe playing with some of the cats.

I'm so pleased to be back for a teaching stint in Orvieto, Italy. The town is about an hour northeast of Rome. I'm teaching two classes for the Arizona in Italy Summer Study Abroad Program. I teach a course in creative non-fiction that invites students to unpack their experiences. We just finished reading Phil Doran's delightful The Reluctant Tuscan. I also teach a film and lit course with the same goal--to help students get a better sense of their surroundings and themselves. We just finished reading E.M. Forster's Where Angels Fear to Tread; today's movie selection is A Room with a View, the Merchant and Ivory film based very closely on the eponymous novel, again by E.F. Forster.

This weekend I traveled cinematographically all the way to the town of Paterson, NJ. In Jim Jarmusch’s new film, bus driver Paterson (Adam Rider) takes us on his daily tour of the city while he picks up passengers and delivers them to their destinations. But to us he delivers something much different—a quiet celebration of life. Paterson spends his time enjoying simple pleasures: a job well done, a glass of beer with friends, an evening with his wife (Golshifteh Farahani). But he is no ordinary bus driver. He is also a poet, and every day he records his thoughts in ways that reflect wonder. He may see the same waterfall every day, but inside it he finds the beauty of the universe.

Halfway through the movie, my friend asked if anything were going to happen. It was a valid question. In Paterson nothing happens—and everything happens. Bus driver Paterson shows us a whole world by taking us inside his. He muses on William Carlos Williams, the influential doctor-poet who was from the area. He walks an unfriendly dog. He indulges his idea-rich wife. Throughout, Paterson retains quiet dignity. While his supervisor has new complaints every day, Paterson accepts his life and embraces it. He recognizes that every single moment is worthy of observation.

Best Bus Driver Ever

​Paterson is a writer’s movie. It celebrates those of us who are never far from a notebook, who consider pen and paper to be primordial daily gear. We might not be able to explain why we must stop everything and record our thoughts. We might never even want to share them. But somehow, no matter where we are, we live through our words. They come to us unbidden yet vibrant. They tap us on the shoulder demanding to be captured, demanding to be recognized.

Like Paterson, we obey.

What did you say that pie was made from?

What are your own Paterson moments? What makes you get out your notebook and start to write?

I had a chance to travel over Christmas--all the way to Springfield, IL! We went to my nieces' Christmas program as it started to rain. By the time we left, the streets were ice! For two days my mother refused to leave the house. My dad and I managed to slide down the sidewalk--very graceful! Finally it warmed up enough for a walk in Washington Park. Winter has its own beauty, of course, but I have to admit that I prefer 40 and gloomy to 20 and icy!